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Help with Paypal

Okay, I've never used Paypal before. I've never really needed because I've never bought stuff online. Recently, however, I saw something I had to have on ebay; the problem, of course, was that it required a paypal account with such.

I messed around with paypal, trying to figure out what all to do, to no avail (at least very little avail). Seriously, all those help pages say nothing useless to people who've never used paypal before. What the hell?

Anyways, I don't have a credit card or anything, but I got a little one-time pay credit card from the store to put on there. I put in all the necessary numbers, and it said it was accepted and all that, but the balance on my paypal account didn't change. I have a theory about why this is, but to test it, I'd need to order something and get to the pay page and try stuff out, which I'm not so sure about. I don't want to be charged $30 that I can't pay at that moment.

So, in case all that's too long and complicated, I'd like to know how exactly paypal works when it comes to buying stuff with it online. When I put in a credit card (like the one-time pay one that I got, with a set amount on it), does paypal never show how much is on the credit card? With such a credit card, do I just select it from a list or something when I get to the paying page of ebay or whatever site I'm buying from? If I use a bank account, will the balance in my bank account show up as my paypal balance or do I need to transfer money from my bank account to the paypal account? And so on . . .

Also, if anyone is willing to help, please remember that I've never bought anything online before except for some small things for my mom (sending the money via a money order). I know sometimes people can speak over a noob's head when trying to help.

PayPal does not have permission to pull your current balance from credit cards and bank accounts. PayPal simply works as a medium in sending & receiving payments online easily, funded by your financial institution / method of choice.

For example, if you add a bank account, and send money to Joe Blow on eBay for a $30 product using an eCheck / instant money transfer (I think instant transfers only work if you have a confirmed credit card and bank account on file), PayPal will take $30 from your bank account in roughly 1 week or less. If your bank account balance is insufficient, you might get an NSF fee from your bank (my bank's fee is $25), as well as a fee from PayPal ($20 I think).

If you try and pay with a credit card and you don't have a sufficient balance on it, it will be declined on the spot.

You don't need a balance in PayPal to send money, you can do it with $0.00 and then just pick your payment option as you go. If you need to though, you can deposit the $30 into PayPal before you buy your thing.